[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-freeqt
Subject:    Re: [freeqt] How to start with Harmony? +vote
From:       Christian Boos <boos () arthur ! u-strasbg ! fr>
Date:       1998-11-23 18:54:18
[Download RAW message or body]

Carl Thompson writes:
 > Christian Boos wrote:
 > > Now, I work on a patch to merge this stuff with an even more Qt-compatible
 > > library than Harmony was... :)
 > 
 > Which library is this or do you mean the QPLed QT?  

You guessed :)  

 > My reason is that the way things are now gives TT too much control over
 > commercial software on Linux if the KDE desktop becomes the standard.  We
 > need a library that is LGPLed. I am not in the software business (anymore)
 > and firmly believe that Open Source Software is the best software both
 > technically and philosophically, but I am not so naive as to believe that
 > commercial software isn't of vital importance to the success of Linux in the
 > next few years.  No one company should be allowed to control access to Linux
 > commercial development.  (Please ignore this paragraph if I am starting to
 > preach-- I have no desire to start another war of words.)
 > 

That's a point of view. I don't share it because of the following
facts: 

1/ it is not proven that Qt is a fundamental component of KDE.
Look at the (commercial and proprietary) StarOffice suite. 
This application is very well integrated with the KDE desktop,
but it isn't linked to the Qt toolkit at all. 
This alone is enough to prove that you are wrong.

2/ there's another popular LGPL toolkit around now. I believe that a commercial
companie (Netscape) has announced that they will be using this
toolkit. Fine. If they want to make their applications KDE compatible,
it don't see anything preventing them from doing so. This will only become
easier and easier I guess.

Given 1 & 2, I doubt Troll Tech would do anything that will hinder the
proprietary software makers from using their library. 

 > > What I'm proposing is a new start for Harmony. Our legacy code should
 > > still be kept around of course, but we could now focus on
 > > real 'harmonizing' issues:
 > > 
 > > 1. KDE/GNOME interoperability
 > > 2. Qt 2 enhancements
 > > 3. KDE/Qt interaction
 > > 
 > > I vote yes for that.
 > 
 > Sounds intriguing, but are you talking about a replacement for QT, or just
 > patches to the QPLed version?  If a replacement, I hope that it would 

You haven't guessed this time. Patches.

But I must also add that I won't be able to contribute patches as soon 
as I expected, given the complexity of the library.
(I'm mainly interested in fixing the "scroll arrow button autorepeat bug"
causing the KeyRelease to be taken into account with too much delay).

-- Christian

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]